Hands up and throw down your expectations.

On the World Race we are told to drop all of our
expectations. Normally this is an important thing to do because they’re often
not going to be met. I expected to go to Israel and Egypt. I expected my
ministry partners in Ukraine to know I was coming. I expected to not be judged
harshly by my squad mates when I didn’t shower for 7 ½ days. None of these
expectations were met. In Ireland, I’ve finally encountered expectations that
turned out to be pretty accurate. I expected Ireland to be gorgeous. Correct. I
expected to be immensely grateful for the English language. Two for two. I
expected Ireland to be spiritually dead. Sadly, this expectation I had hoped to
drop is spot on.

Less than 1% of Ireland’s population is evangelical
Christian. Many people identify with themselves with the organized Church, but
don’t attend or practice the faith. Galway is Ireland’s 3rd biggest
city, yet there are only about 25 Christian churches here. 20 are small African
refugee churches with 5-10 members. Of the remaining 5, only 2 are involved in
outreach in the community. We’ve been blessed enough to work with one of these,
Discovery Church.

My team is again teaming up with Umoja this month, and our
ministry contact is an awesome American (redundant, I know) named Jimmy who
moved here from Nashville and now leads church outreach. We’ll be doing various
types of outreach, ministry and evangelism while we’re here including cleaning up
the city, prayer ministry, simple street evangelism where we just talk to
people, and more. Talking to strangers about anything is something I’ve never been comfortable
with let alone my faith. When I found out this would be the
majority of our month, I was excited because I knew I needed a push, but I was
definitely scared too.  However, we’ve
been absolutely set up to succeed while still being pushed outside our comfort
zone, and I’ve still had to drop my fair share of expectations…which isn’t
always bad.

A man from the church named Padraig is the most gifted
evangelist I’ve ever seen, and he spent an hour preparing us with
tips and training then went into the town with us, and I got to see him work
first hand as he related to perfect strangers, showed them he was there because
he cared about them – not for his or his church’s gain, and then he presented
them with the Gospel. I never expected to get personal training from probably
the best evangelist Ireland has seen since Saint Patrick. Happy to drop that
expectation.

Another man, Ken, from the church is also a blessing. He’s a
widower with five children, yet he still takes the time to come talk to us
about prayer ministry and present it in such a simple manner that I can’t help
but be excited about doing it. He reminded us the ultimate goal is not spiritual healing but to show the love of God, and he also accompanied us out evangelizing. Then as a
special treat he ordered all 13 of us Domino’s pizza. I didn’t expect to see a
Domino’s deliveryman on the World Race. Happy to drop that
expectation.

I’ve had some really positive experiences where I was able to step out of my comfort zone and see the Lord work through it. Our first day of
evangelism was simply us approaching strangers and presenting the Gospel.
Already a little scary and then even more so when I know fairly certainly that
whoever I talk to won’t agree with me. 
So after a few training sessions, it’s my turn to initiate conversation.
 I approach a couple, introduce
myself and ask if they believe in God. No. Heaven and hell? No. Umm, any higher
power or afterlife? No. Ok, well crap. Carrie, who I’m partnered with, asks if
we can tell them the Gospel anyway for our own practice. For some reason they
agree. We proceed to stumble through the entire thing, yet every once in a
while for a short span I feel words come out of my mouth that can only be from
God – because they make sense. We finish speaking with the couple and they
actually thank us for our time. Even when we feel like we failed, we still
succeeded because we were open enough to throw ourselves into that situation. I
never expected to ask an atheist to present the Gospel to him solely for
personal practice and then be thanked for taking the time to speak to him after
I was done. Happy to drop that
expectation.

A few days later we’re sent into the city to clean and scrub
graffiti. The church has such a negative connotation in Ireland, so this tries to bring some positive association to it. After several tries and
only succeeding once at scrubbing off a graffito, Mary and I walk across a man
with a crippled leg sitting on the streets. We exchange hellos, Mary asks him
how he is, he responds lonely, and 90 minutes later Mary and I have made a new
friend named Giovanni. He is familiar with the Lord, but still has a lot of
questions about God and has issues with bitterness. I’ve since then talked to
him three times at his usual spot. He loves company and I love our conversation
as it challenges me to look more into the Word to answer his questions. I never expected I’d make a 26
year old half-Italian, half-Romanian friend on the streets of Ireland who I can
talk to about the Lord each and every day. Happy to drop that
expectation.

Right outside our campground. Seriously. I live here.

So that’s basically life in Ireland right now. I absolutely
positively love it. It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever been, the church we’re
working with is fantastic, and I really do enjoy being stretched just not
always at the time. Thanks to you all for your continued support and I would
really appreciate prayers for Ireland as a whole, Discovery church and my
friend Giovanni – that he let go of the bitterness he so closely holds on to
and that our friendship continues to grow.

Two weeks left in Galway. I expect the Lord to continue to
do great things through us, and that’s one expectation I don’t plan on
dropping.